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Next story in Space

The Obama administration has outlined its strategy for
maintaining what it describes as the United States' global
leadership role in spaceflight and exploration.

The White House's new national space transportation policy,
released Thursday (Nov. 21), reinforces several previously stated
administration priorities. It calls on federal agencies to
continue supporting the development of private
American spaceships to carry astronauts to and from low-Earth
orbit, for example, and directs NASA to keep working on a
heavy-lift rocket to send people much farther afield.

"The development of a commercial space sector for low-Earth orbit
transportation is freeing NASA to develop a heavy-lift launch
capability to travel further into space than ever before," Bolden
wrote in a blog post about the new policy Thursday.

"NASA has already made steady progress on the development of the
next-generation heavy-lift launch vehicle, the Space
Launch System (SLS)," he added. "NASA is also well on its way
to developing the Orion crew capsule, which will take astronauts
further into deep space than humans have ever explored."

The maiden Orion test flight is slated for next year, while the
SLS is scheduled to get off the ground for the first time in late
2017. NASA wants the duo to be flying astronauts together by
2021.

That would allow the space agency to meet two objectives
President Barack Obama laid out for NASA in his 2010 National
Space Policy — to get astronauts to a near-Earth asteroid by
2025, then on to the vicinity of
Mars by the mid-2030s.

While it works on this deep-space transportation system, NASA is
also encouraging the growth of an emerging private spaceflight
industry. Through its commercial crew program, the agency has
most recently funded the development of three private manned
spaceships — those being built by SpaceX, Boeing and Sierra
Nevada Corp. — and hopes at least one of them is up and running
by 2017.

Leaders in the commercial spaceflight industry were pleased to
see continued support for this effort in the new policy.

"We appreciate this clear delineation of policy in favor of
supporting American industry, creating the most effective and
efficient space program possible and ensuring the nation retains
its leadership and competitiveness in space," Michael
Lopez-Alegria, president of Commercial Spaceflight Federation and
a former NASA astronaut, said in a statement. "We are grateful
for the Obama Administration’s support for the commercial space
sector and look forward to many joint successes to come."

The newly released space transportation policy, which replaces a
version announced in 2004, is a wide-ranging document touching on
many different aspects of American space infrastructure.

It encourages international collaboration when beneficial and
practicable, for example, and also instructs government agencies
to support research and development into advanced propulsion
technologies. You can read the entire document here:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/national_space_transportation_policy_11212013.pdf